Rivers: sharing, linking and disputes

Prelims and Mains

The Home Minister has offered river linking as the answer that could keep India free of water shortage for a century. Every link is an inter-basin transfer, and the objection is that moving water to a basin in deficit creates a fresh claimant on water that already has users.

• The links are proposed under the National Perspective Plan of 1980 and worked up by the National Water Development Agency.
• A receiving region may demand its transferred water even in a distress year, at the cost of the original users.
• Tamil Nadu's requests for tribunals on the Pennaiyar in November 2019 and on Mekedatu in March 2026 are unanswered, one despite a Supreme Court direction.
• Demand side management is the alternative: conserve, reward efficient farm use, and curb groundwater drawn on free power.
• Ken-Betwa is the first link to be built, a 231 km canal carrying Ken water to the Betwa, with the Daudhan dam inside Panna Tiger Reserve.
• Ten villages will be submerged and twelve more displaced for compensatory afforestation.
• Adivasis in Chhatarpur allege eviction before compensation and irregular gram sabha consent.